


broke free on a saturday morning

by Lexie



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-21
Updated: 2011-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/pseuds/Lexie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt wants to go to homecoming, but Blaine has reservations. This predictably leads to: New Directions schemes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	broke free on a saturday morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaci3PO](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaci3PO/gifts).



> Title from "This Year" by the Mountain Goats.

It all starts on a Monday.

"So," Kurt says out of nowhere. They've been sitting in silence for at least a half an hour, Blaine using Kurt as a back rest (perched sideways on the couch with his back pressed against Kurt's side and his knees tucked up) while he works on his pre-cal homework. Kurt's vociferous protests about not being a piece of furniture, thank you very much, hadn't gotten him very far. Primarily because Blaine knows he didn't mean it and that he not-so-secretly loves it when Blaine drapes himself over him.

"So?" Blaine asks, both fond and a little absent. He jots a number into the notebook balanced on his knees before he can forget it.

"Homecoming," Kurt says, and he sounds matter-of-fact, but Blaine knows him well enough to hear the hint of uncertainty in his voice. "We need to decide if we're going."

"Why?" Blaine asks casually, willing his back not to tense up against Kurt. He starts copying the next homework question out of his math book. He feels like the world's biggest jerk. "Do you want to?"

There is silence, and then Kurt tersely says, " _Yes_ ," like Blaine is an idiot, which, granted -- that was a really stupid question.

"I do realize," Kurt continues, when Blaine doesn't say anything because while he _knows_ that Kurt knows him better than anyone and that he doesn't have to internalize his weaknesses and project calm, it's a bad habit by now, "that it's a high school dance and, as such, will be full of streamers and hideous ruched dresses from JC Penney and the unwashed masses squeezed into their fathers' moth-eaten suits, but--"

Kurt must see something in Blaine's face, because he suddenly stops dead and then blurts, all at once, "Oh my God you don't want to go."

"No," Blaine protests, guiltily.

"That's why you've been changing the subject to the genius of John Galliano's spring collection all week when I mentioned homecoming. You were trying to _distract_ me." His eyebrows lower even farther. "You wanted to let me down _easy_?" Kurt looks mortified, which is both a little funny (Kurt pulls amazing faces and Blaine isn't made of stone) and completely heart-breaking, because he's very clearly hurt, too, and Blaine never wants to cause that.

" _No,_ " Blaine says firmly, turning around on the couch so he can grab both of Kurt's hands (nearly stabbing himself on Kurt's pencil in the process). There is a beat, the two of them staring at each other. Blaine admits, "Well, maybe. Just on the distraction part."

"You could have just _informed_ me that you don't want to go, Blaine," Kurt snaps, and while he is letting Blaine hold his hands, he's obviously angry with wounded pride. Blaine has to reconsider whether the near miss from the pencil was actually an accident. "I can take it."

"Kurt, seriously, _no_." He tightens his grip on Kurt's hands, which at least seems to get Kurt to stop for a minute. He's earnest but not without a hint of exasperated humor when he asks: "Can I talk now? Please?"

He eyes him beadily, then sighs. "Proceed." The fact that he's playing at being superior makes Blaine feel a little less sick; like maybe he's not quite as hurt as Blaine had first thought.

"So you know things weren't great at the school I went to before Dalton," Blaine says without preamble, and he sees Kurt's eyes widen faintly and Kurt sit up straighter. Does he really talk about Bellefontaine _that_ little, that Kurt peers at him and starts silently brushing his thumb across the back of Blaine's hand when he mentions it? Apparently. "I don't have the best track record with dances," he admits, and he's trying to be better about lowering the façade with Kurt because he doesn't _have_ to pretend that he knows what he's doing, but saying that sentence feels like pulling teeth. "I _want_ to go, but I don't know--" It's so stupid. This shouldn't still get to him.

Blaine didn't finish the sentence, but Kurt seems to get it. " _10 Things I Hate About You_ not-the-best or _Jawbreaker_ not-the-best?" Kurt asks thoughtfully, and Blaine half smiles.

" _Carrie_ not-the-best," he says, rueful. "But with punch instead of pig's blood. And I didn't kill anybody with my brain afterward."

The set of Kurt's mouth hardens around the edges, then softens again. "Far be it from me to insist on reliving a traumatic incident involving fruit punch," he says tightly, but it's careful, not acid-tongued or tart; he's giving Blaine the chance to take it lightly and change the subject.

Blaine is so ridiculously head over heels for this boy.

"Dalton didn't hold a lot of dances," he says. Blaine feels like an idiot. Worse, he feels like a complete coward. "So the rampant humiliation at Bellefontaine is -- _kind_ of my last association with them." He says it wryly because that's the best way to soften it. “And, God I hate to say it, but – we don't even know if they would let us _in_ together, Kurt.” _Coward,_ he thinks. _Coward, coward_.

It's frustrating and infuriating and not doing the greatest things for his sense of self-worth, but it's also the truth. Blaine _knows_ he has teachers who don't approve of him holding Kurt's hand in the halls and that there are parents who feel the same way, and it's a total crap shoot when it comes to who'll be selling the tickets during the school week and who will be manning the door at the dance. He is having flashbacks to the girl in Mississippi who had to sue the school to be allowed to attend prom with her girlfriend, and who showed up on the evening of the event to find that no one was there because parents had set up a top-secret, gay-free prom.

"Then we," Kurt says determinedly, "will just have to have a _much_ more fabulous night of our own." He scoffs, dismissive: "Not that it'll be hard to beat an event held in a gym that reeks of sweaty socks and despair."

Blaine immediately cups Kurt's jaw in his hand, and he gets to watch Kurt light up with the force of his smile for a couple seconds before he's too close to see Kurt's face at all.

* * *

At his locker in the morning, Kurt comes up and -- with absolutely no preamble, not even giving Blaine time to comment on the _killer_ vintage scarf he's wearing -- says, "What about making a new association?"

"--Uh, what?" Blaine asks, laughing and letting his voice go high on _what_ , half-turning out of his locker so he can properly stare at Kurt.

"A new association," Kurt says, doing that thing he does when he's impatient and excited where he talks really, really fast. "With high school dances, to overpower the old one."

"Um," says Blaine diplomatically, and he pulls his physics book out of the locker and shuts the door. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

"What would you say," Kurt says, his eyes shining, "if I said that I could guarantee a mostly-harassment-free high school dance experience?"

"I'd say you're a magician," Blaine says warily. McKinley may now have an official anti-bullying policy, but the jackass behavior didn't transfer out alongside Dave Karofsky or graduate with Azimio Adams, and the introduction of new policies hasn't made the administration any less spineless.

There are plenty of mutters of _fag_ in the hall (from what Kurt has said, the fact that they're mutters rather than shouts marks an improvement) and they get shoulder-checked when they hold hands within enough of a crowd that shoves can be played off as accidents, and Blaine now knows what grape slushie tastes like after it has dripped down his face. From what he has seen, a bunch of other kids take abuse, too. There are no dumpster tosses, though, for anyone; no one gets jumped in the parking lot. Some of the teachers try to help as much as they can. It's a start, but Principal Figgins will have to do a better job of enforcing policy before any real change is made in the general mindset of what is and isn't acceptable behavior. Blaine has only been a student at McKinley for a month and a half, but he'll believe _that_ when he sees it. So far, fellow glee club students have been doing a better job of enforcing the rules than the principal's office has.

"I'm no magician," Kurt says, stepping away from the lockers and trusting that Blaine will follow (he always does). He looks and sounds like the cat that swallowed the canary. Or the voracious online shopper who found a limited edition Balmain jacket for a steal. Self-satisfied and lofty: "Just your friendly neighborhood logistical genius."

" _How_ would you do this?" Blaine asks, curling his fingers around Kurt's palm after Kurt reaches out for his hand. They don't kiss in the halls or in open places on school property, by unspoken don't-poke-the-pit-of-angry-vipers agreement, but they _do_ hold hands and walk to class, and fix each others' hair in public, and sing and dance together in glee performances, and they catch shit for it, but Blaine doesn't care and he knows Kurt doesn't either. He feels like he's eight feet tall and can breathe lightning bolts, as long as Kurt is standing beside him.

"Do you trust me?"

"That's a pretty unfair question," Blaine says, frowning, but instead of taking umbrage, Kurt just squeezes his hand.

"Trust me," repeats Kurt, softer, and when Blaine opens his mouth to respond, he catches a flash of red letterman jackets and then finds himself dripping with raspberry-flavored ice.

Kurt flicks slushie out of his own eyes and then shouts after the two high-fiving hockey players as they strut away, his hand clamped around Blaine's in a vise grip and his other hand balled up at his side; he's hollering something about sweeping hair off the floor at Supercuts. Blaine tilts his head to the side and taps it a couple times, and he can feel stinging cold slushie trickle out of his ear.

Kurt is breathing hard beside him, his face red-stained and furious; Blaine doesn't even want to think about trying to clean his sweater and Kurt's jacket. "Do you regret transferring here yet?" Kurt asks dryly, thrumming with outrage, but with an undercurrent of that _seriously_ dark sense of humor that Blaine loves (and another undercurrent, one that sounds a little like guilt).

"Nope," Blaine says, and screw _all of them_ , he kisses Kurt square on the cold sticky lips, right there outside Ms. Hoffmeier's biology classroom. Kurt is wide-eyed when he draws back. Blaine says: "Kurt, I would be honored to gay up homecoming with you," and Kurt grabs his hand so hard that it feels like he might break Blaine's fingers.

* * *

Kurt won't tell Blaine his plans. It's maddening; Blaine hates not being in control of what's going on, which is, he strongly suspects, why Kurt seems to be getting such a kick out of keeping him in the dark.

Blaine keeps walking in on conversations where people stop, peer at him, and then awkwardly pretend they were talking about the weather or a movie or Jacob Ben Israel's latest blog post. Blaine is pretty used to that reaction when it comes to the rest of the student body; there was a whole lot of gossip when Blaine first showed up in September. He's _not_ really used to it in glee, though. He and Kurt are among the most drama-free (apart from Kurt's natural dramatic tendencies, which mostly manifest themselves through song selections and wardrobe choices and the occasional diva face-off with Rachel) of the club's couples, and there just isn't a lot to say about them behind their backs.

Until now, apparently.

Blaine walks into rehearsal and Finn says, "Uhh, spiders! Spiders. They're gross," or Mike throws himself away from the small huddle and abruptly starts dancing to no music, or Quinn has a fit in which she is clearly coughing words too quietly for Blaine to hear them. He is trying to take it all with good grace (his personal favorite response so far is stopping in the doorway and saying, "What? Do I have something on my face?") and he knows that they all mean well and have undoubtedly been pulled into Kurt's mysterious machinations, but it's hard.

It's especially hard because it feels like Blaine hasn't seen his boyfriend all week.

Kurt has been deep in conversation with Mercedes or conferencing with Sam, Dan, and Rachel. Blaine walks past the guidance office one morning on his way to Spanish and sees the back of a familiar head through the glass wall, Ms. Pillsbury-Howell nodding encouragingly and looking serious behind her desk. There are days when Blaine can't find Kurt at all; when he isn't in any of his classrooms or at the piano or his locker or even in the auditorium, and Blaine tries not to feel too frustrated or concerned -- they are, after all, two separate people with two separate lives, and they do plenty of things independently -- but it's always still a relief when Kurt turns a corner or shows up at rehearsal.

Even while they're together, Kurt is distracted and clearly plotting. The worst comes when they're taking advantage of Wednesday's extended football practice and the rare, all-too-brief window between extracurriculars finishing and Kurt's parents coming home from work. Blaine is thoroughly pinned by Kurt's warm weight and his mouth, and he's seriously considering the effort of figuring out how to get Kurt out of all of the straps on his shirt; the only downside to the plan is that they'll have to stop kissing to accomplish it, and Blaine can't quite bring himself to do that.

That is, until he hears the tinny opening bars of "Telephone," and Kurt abruptly stiffens mid-lazy-makeout and lunges to grab his iPhone. Blaine throws up his hands, rolls out from under Kurt, and gets right out of the bed. By the time that Kurt has convinced him to come back, Carole is shouting a cheery hello from downstairs.

On Friday, Blaine spots Kurt having a low, intent conversation with Santana over her newly-regained place at the Cheerios' lunch table, and she looks very, very unhappy and obstinate when Kurt finally pivots away to join Blaine.

“What was _that_ about?” Blaine asks, settling in beside Finn (who greets him with a friendly clap on the shoulder without glancing up from his discussion with Artie and Whitney; it sounds like they're talking _Call of Duty_ ) with his lunch tray at the glee table.

Taking the seat across from him, Kurt shrugs airily and Blaine frowns. Kurt relents, twisting the cap off his bottle of water, and says, “You'll find out tonight, ideally.”

Blaine opens his mouth, but Kurt knows him well enough to recognize that he has reached his breaking point with all the secrecy and the cloak and dagger stuff, and with the fact that everyone at this table is listening to this conversation while pretending they don't notice it. “My preparations are airtight,” Kurt promises, and he presses his boot against Blaine's sneaker under the table. “We're going to have a 100% drama-free homecoming.”

Finn looks like he wants to say something beside him, but then Blaine indignantly hisses, “ _Ow!_ ” because someone just kicked him.

Sitting across the table, Rachel's eyes widen. She stares at him for a guilty split second, and then she abruptly turns toward the rest of the table and says, "While we're all gathered together, I really think it's high time that we discuss potential songs for sectionals. As you're all well aware, we have to place at regionals again this year in order to keep the club alive, so we can _not_ afford to become complacent." Everybody groans or rolls their eyes; Tina flicks a tater tot at her.

Blaine is so busy peering at Rachel suspiciously that he only catches the tail end of what must have been a truly epic face from Kurt at his stepbrother. Finn looks appropriately cowed, anyway. When he notices that Blaine is looking at him, Kurt smiles sunnily.

Blaine feels unnerved.

* * *

On Friday night, Blaine sits on the Hummels' couch and he watches with bemusement as Finn gets more and more frustrated trying to beat Blaine's high score at _Burn Zombie Burn!_ “Dude, how did you even do this?” Finn asks, yelping as a zombie leaps out and claws him. “You're like a stone-cold killer.”

Blaine laughs. “It's all about the reflex; the second you see one, you have to hit--” and then the door bell rings, and Finn says something desperate that really shouldn't be said in polite company. They're in the front room and Kurt and Tina are _still_ doing something upstairs that, from the sounds of it, involves a whole lot of hairspray and shouts that Blaine can only go up there under pain of death, and the Hummels are in the kitchen with the Cohen-Changs.

“I can get it,” Blaine says; Finn mutters something grateful, his eyes glued to the screen, and Blaine hauls himself up and goes to the door. He finds Rachel there with two men who can only be her fathers, one white dad and one black dad and both smiling fit to beat the band. Blaine, though, mostly has eyes for Rachel and the dress that she is wearing under an incongruous red peacoat. The gown is a showstopper, that's for sure, and that's undoubtedly why Rachel picked it; it's floor-length in a shiny purple fabric (potentially taffeta), with a sweetheart neckline and – and this is the real kicker – a cascade of un _believably_ tacky giant rosettes running from one hip all the way down to the hem.

Kurt is going to shit bricks.

Rachel is beaming, though, and her hair has been pulled up off her face, and Blaine is very fond of her even after (maybe because of?) the entire drunken debacle that took place last spring, so it's easy to say warmly, “Rachel, you're beautiful.”

Her smile only widens; she says, “Thank you, I know," and motions as if she's going to toss her hair gaily -- but then laughs and lets her hand fall because it's up in a chignon, so there's no hair to toss. "You look quite handsome yourself."

"Thanks," Blaine says, shrugging it off modestly but grinning. He feels a little James Bond in his black suit, though Bond would definitely not have paired it with black and white saddle shoes or a burgundy bow tie. "I kind of figured I'd have to step it up so I don't get totally outclassed by my date." It's homecoming, not prom, so most guys -- Finn included -- are going to turn up wearing black or khaki pants with a dress shirt and a tie (Kurt has stated his willingness to lay money on the ratio of Dockers-to-other-pants being 70% or higher), but Blaine isn't dating most guys.

Rachel laughs again, her eyes dancing knowingly, but she doesn't elaborate on what Kurt's wearing; she just says, "Dad, Daddy, this is Blaine.”

“It's very nice to meet you,” says the smiling father on Rachel's right, and he reaches over to shake Blaine's hand in a strong grip; Blaine shakes the other dad's hand, too, and steps aside so they can come in. They help each other out of their coats while Blaine takes Rachel's. Blaine doesn't know a whole lot of adult gay couples; there's something weirdly fantastic about watching them do something that easy and couple-y. Like there will be life beyond when going to a simple high school dance requires wariness and a week's worth of ... whatever exactly it is that Kurt has been doing.

The doorbell rings again while Blaine is collecting everybody's stuff to put in the closet (sometimes, Blaine feels like he lives here; this is one of those times), and he winds up taking Mike's and Mrs. Chang's coats, too. By the time he makes it back into the living room, the adults have all been greeted by Burt and Carole and have moved into the kitchen, and Mike has dropped onto the couch and taken over Finn's Xbox controller.

Finn, meanwhile, is standing awkwardly and staring at Rachel. "Wow," he's saying. "Just -- wow."

"Thank you," Rachel says to Finn, beaming and blushing, and doing a spin in front of Finn to show off the full effect of her dress. Finn is still staring, but he's starting to smile softly. It's very sweet. Blaine privately thinks that the six months spent single or dating other people did them some good.

He perches on the arm of the sofa and watches them out of the corner of his eye. "Sweet kicks," he says to Mike.

Mike happily wiggles his black and blue high-top sneakers. "Totally worth the fight with my mom," he pronounces. A zombie leaps on his avatar on the TV, and the screen goes red and then black. Mike throws up his hands and sets the controller aside. "Are they _still_ getting ready?" he asks, pointing a questioning finger up at the ceiling.

"We're not allowed up there," Blaine confirms, which is when somebody else raps at the door and then it opens before anyone can get up; a few seconds later, Mercedes and Quinn turn the corner together in a flurry of skirts and smiles. Everybody starts talking all at once, laughing and chattering, the three girls (Mercedes in floor-length electric green that Blaine is pretty sure nobody else in the world could pull off; Quinn in demure-but-short pale pink with a pair of white flats) exclaiming over each other's dresses.

"Okay," says Mercedes, cutting into the commotion, " _where_ are my boy and girl?"

Blaine wordlessly points at the ceiling, Mike following his lead. "If we leave them up there, they're never coming down," Quinn says to Mercedes, who gathers up her green skirts and heads for the stairs.

"We'll give 'em a little shove," she promises, Quinn hot on her heels. "C'mon, ladies."

Rachel's look of astonishment (followed rapidly by joy) at being included almost hurts to watch; her whole face lights up and she rustles along after them, beaming, and the three of them clomp up the stairs.

"Hello?" calls a new voice from the foyer, and Finn mutters, "Crap," and then hollers, "Come in!"

Blaine says, "I don't know if you can _fit_ many more people in this house," and Mike laughs beside him as they hear the front door close again.

There's a burst of talking in the kitchen and another one from upstairs, but above it all, Blaine can very clearly hear Kurt's scandalized voice say, " _Oh my God_ ," and Blaine has to start laughing, even if it makes him look like a lunatic in front of whoever is coming down the hall, because Kurt obviously just got his first look at Rachel's dress.

"Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Jones," Finn says to the black couple who have stepped into the living room doorway. Mercedes doesn't really resemble her tall, sharp-faced dad, but she has the exact same radiant smile as her mom, who's shaking out her umbrella.

"Hi boys," says Mrs. Jones, and Mike waves; Blaine smiles.

Several voices laugh all at once in the kitchen, and Finn says, "I think the parents are hanging out in--" and then he points.

"Uh huh," Mrs. Jones says, and she tosses a critical, bemused eye over the three of them and the TV. " 'Cause I see you three are real busy in here, killing the undead and all." Finn shuffles his feet and mutters something sheepish, and Mrs. Jones throws her head back and laughs. "Come on, Frank; we'll leave them to it."

In their wake, Finn says, "Do you guys really th--" and then the doorbell rings. Again.

"Seriously?" asks Mike.

Finn's eyebrows are furrowed. "I don't think anybody else is coming," he says slowly, and then the door creaks open and heels slowly click toward them, and a classically pretty blonde in a trench coat appears.

"I'm sorry," she says softly; her smile looks professionally pasted-on, and she looks like she's about ready to start twitching. "No one came to the door, and I heard voices--"

Finn is frozen with obvious shock and potentially some terror and Mike isn't saying anything, so Blaine smiles as kindly as he can and says, "It's okay. It's pretty loud in here." (Between the game's ambient rock music on the pause screen, and the groups both upstairs and downstairs, that's actually true.)

"Mrs. Fabray," says Finn, like he just got jarred loose. "Um -- hi."

"It's actually Ms. Landry n--"

"Finn?" calls Carole's voice, which is rapidly getting loud as she comes down the hall from the kitchen. "Did I hear the door--" She stops short when she sees Ms. Landry standing awkwardly in her living room. The smile fades off Carole's face. "Judy."

"Hi Carole." Quinn's mom is holding her purse with both hands, her knuckles white with her grip. "I'm sorry; I don't want to intrude. It's just that Quinn said that parents would be taking pictures, and she got ready at the Joneses, so I wasn't able to--"

"No," says Carole; Blaine can tell it's kind of a reflex. "No, no. Of course."

Mike is glancing from mom to mom, his eyes a little wide. Finn looks kind of like he wants to sink into the sofa.

Blaine very, very slowly leans in close to Mike and then mutters, "What's ... going on?" right in his ear.

"So -- Quinn lied, last year, and said that Finn was the father of her baby?" Mike says in a quiet aside, barely moving his mouth, like that's going to keep him from being noticed here; Blaine nods his awareness of the baby daddy drama. "And her parents threw her out of the house, so she lived with Finn and his mom for a while. I don't ... think anybody's parents have talked since then."

Blaine's eyes flick from one woman to the other.

"Please, come in," says Carole, and her smile doesn't quite reach her eyes the way that it usually does, but she reaches out and takes Quinn's mom's hand. "We're having a parent gathering in the kitchen before we make the kids pose for about a million pictures."

Quinn's mom looks like she's blinking back tears. "Thank you," she says, and Kurt's stepmom pulls her into the kitchen.

There's silence.

"Your mom," Blaine tells Finn, "is seriously awesome."

Finn whooshes out a heavy breath, loud enough that it sounds like he's been holding it. He glances across Mike, at Blaine. "I know," he says, and he gives a small, tentative smile.

"Okay, boys," proclaims Mercedes's voice, and she clatters down the stairs. "We got the hairspray away from your dates. You better be ready for this."

"Don't light a match near either of them," Quinn says dryly, accepting Mercedes's hand down off the staircase. "You'll blow up half the county."

"Lies," says Kurt's voice. "Filthy lies."

Blaine sees his feet first, and the outfit initially looks subdued by Kurt Hummel standards. He's wearing matte black loafers (doubtless vintage and real leather, beautiful but classic) with skinny black dress pants. Then the rest of him comes into view as he keeps descending the stairs, and Blaine understands. Kurt's tailored suit jacket has satiny lapels, but the rest of the jacket -- the _entire thing_ \-- is made up of black sequins that flash in the light with every move he makes. He has paired it with a white dress shirt and a shiny black tie, and his hair has been swept into new heights of perfection, but seriously, _that jacket_. It fits perfectly, emphasizing the breadth of Kurt's shoulders and his trim waist and oh, God, he looks so good.

Blaine is vaguely aware of the fact that he's staring. He is made aware of this fact by watching Kurt's nervous-looking narrow smile turn into a flush. Kurt reaches out and tugs on the lapels of Blaine's jacket in an achingly familiar movement (one that no one else here will understand), then smooths them down again. "This is amazing," Kurt says lowly, his eyes shining. "You look amazing."

It's worth it. They haven't even left Kurt's house yet, and right now, everything, all of this -- how long it took Blaine to figure out what to wear, the ugly scenarios he's been envisioning for days, the potential messiness waiting for them at the school -- he doesn't care. He would do it all again, ten times, if it meant he would get to see that awed look on Kurt's face.

Neither of them is much for PDA, even when they're in front of their friends in the chorus room or in the Hummel household, which is basically like Fort Knox in terms of places where it's safe for them to get handsy with each other; public groping and grabbing is just not their style. But seriously, in this case -- screw that. Blaine reaches up and cups the side of Kurt's neck in his hand, thumb brushing his jaw and fingers barely touching the hair at the nape of his neck. "I have the hottest date here," he says quietly, and Kurt huffs a laugh. "Kurt, you look _incredible_ , seriously."

Kurt smiles enormously, his face a little blurry due to proximity, and then Blaine hears Rachel giggle and he abruptly realizes that the world has continued spinning while he and Kurt gawked at each other; Tina and Rachel came downstairs and everybody is talking and laughing and kindly ignoring Kurt and Blaine.

Kurt apparently reenters the real world right when Blaine does. "Have you _seen_ what Rachel's wearing?" Kurt mutters, sounding offended. "It took everything that I had not to ask her who flayed Barney and made flowers out of his skin." Blaine tries to muffle his laughter in Kurt's sequined shoulder, but it isn't an entirely successful attempt.

"You're terrible," Blaine accuses merrily, putting his hands on Kurt's upper arms so he can push himself back up again.

"I only say what everyone else is thinking," Kurt replies, light and faux-disdainful.

Blaine's hands are still on Kurt's shiny shoulders, and as he's about to let them fall back to his side, he realizes. "Is this--?" he asks, eyes narrowing in sudden suspicion, and Kurt's airy brush of his fingers across his perfectly sculpted bang wordlessly confirms it. "Oh my God, it _is_! How did you get your hands on the sequined tuxedo jacket from the Dolce and Gabbana fall collection?"

"I have my ways. Too much?" Kurt asks breathlessly, and Blaine laughs. "The decision came down to this or the same jacket in magenta."

"It's just enough," Blaine promises, and they grin at each other.

Quinn says, "Frankly, this is gross. All of you." Blaine belatedly realizes that Finn is still stealing awed glances at Rachel, and that Tina (who's wearing a vintage-looking short black dress with blue-laced black combat boots) has been carefully pinning a boutonniere on Mike's sport coat. "Pictures!"

Carole wasn't kidding when she told Quinn's mom that they were going to take about a million pictures. First there are pictures of all of them together lined up in front of the fireplace, then just the guys, then just the girls, then dates -- it's crazy. It's nice, though. Blaine's parents couldn't be here to be part of the parental paparazzi, but Carole assures him that she will take _plenty_ of photos for them. Everybody's talking and laughing, and Blaine is more than happy to take picture after picture with his friends around him and with Kurt tucked warm against his side.

Nobody so much as blinks when it's their turn to take couple photos; Blaine wraps his arm around Kurt's waist and smiles in front of what feels like at least 30 cameras but can't actually be more than four or five. The flashes are bright, but Blaine isn't blind. He sees Mrs. Jones's enormous smile, and the way that Rachel's dads are looking at them, and Rachel grabbing Mercedes's arm, and Carole's eyes going a little shiny as she snaps photos, and Kurt's dad keeping the brim of his cap tugged down low over the upper half of his face but his tiny smile clearly visible.

So maybe they're not treated _just_ like the other couples, but Blaine can live with that.

* * *

Blaine's nerves don't return until they're in the car. Rachel prodded Finn into singing along with the radio and now they're crooning "Grenade" to each other in the front seat. As the car pulls up to the stop sign around the corner from the high school, Blaine can feel his skin start to prickle. He breathes calmly; steadily, easy. He tells himself that this is different. He isn't standing alone, desperately trying to fit in. There are two carloads of students here who will stand behind him, and one who'll be right beside him (and probably in front of him, knowing Kurt, if anyone takes so much as a step toward them). He's more than willing to stand out. But Blaine still thinks that whoever invented high school dances did so just to create an event with the maximum potential for humiliation and jackassery.

When he glances over, he finds Kurt looking at him through the moving stripes of light provided by streetlamps as they drive past. There's something about the moment, silent and totally _theirs_ across the backseat of Finn's crappy car, that makes Blaine's heart feel like it's swelling in his chest.

"Courage," Kurt says, very quiet, and Blaine laughs softly.

Rachel cuts off right in the middle of singing to Finn that she'd jump in front of a train for him, and she turns around in the passenger seat. "I would just like to reiterate that the Glee Club will be 100% behind you once we've arrived." They both start at her voice; apparently, Rachel has impeccable hearing, even while singing.

"You're a moment killer," Kurt tells her sharply. "That's what you are."

"The Glee Club will be 100% behind us, huh?" Blaine asks wryly, glancing at Kurt, who gives a tiny shrug at him.

"We totally are," Finn says earnestly, glancing at them in the rearview mirror as he pulls the car into the parking lot. "Don't worry, guys. We've got this."

"Kurt, are we going to have bodyguards?" Blaine mutters with great misgivings, aiming a broad, leery smile at Finn and Rachel. Kurt chuckles maddeningly, unbuckles his seat belt, and slides out of the other side of the car.

Frowning, Blaine follows his lead. Thankfully, the rain let up while they were on the way over; they're left with a chilly October Ohio evening. The gym entrance is lit up and there are a number of silhouettes making their way in that direction across the parking lot. Some of said silhouettes look a little wobbly -- pre-gaming must already be happening.

Blaine jumps when Finn double-taps the horn as Tina parks in the spot beside them. The doors open and the others start spilling out of her car, and then Blaine belatedly realizes, as he shuts Finn's door, that two girls have stepped out of an SUV in the next row and are coming toward them.

"Took you bitches long enough," says Santana Lopez, and she and Brittany step into the ring of light provided by the nearest lamppost. Santana is in something long and slinky with an over-the-top pattern in reds and purples and yellows; it's the kind of thing that no one should be able to rock, and yet there she is. Whatever Brittany is wearing, meanwhile, is so short that Blaine can't see it under her coat.

"Yeah," says Mercedes, " 'cause you _mind_ sitting in the backseat of a car with Brittany."

"We weren't sitting," says Brittany, stating the very obvious. Her hair was probably once styled into loose curls around her shoulders and is now sticking up all over the place. "Rachel, I like your flowers."

Blaine can both feel and hear Kurt hiss beside him at the compliment to Rachel's dress; Santana momentarily looks like she can't even fathom what is the matter with Brittany, but she shakes it off. "Whatever," says Santana grimly. "Let's do this." And then, much to Blaine's astonishment, she wraps her hand around Brittany's and marches across the parking lot toward the school.

Everyone else follows, Rachel tugging at Finn as he laughs, Mike and Tina swinging their hands, and Quinn and Mercedes companionably linking arms and joking about something, but Blaine can't stop staring after the backs of Brittany and Santana's heads.

"Problem?" Kurt asks, patiently waiting but looking a little concerned.

Blaine turns on him. "Did you do this?" he asks. "Are they here as each others' _dates_?"

Kurt gently pulls on his sleeve, and Blaine, still gobsmacked, automatically follows him toward the entrance. "Yes," Kurt says, "they are, and I merely pointed out to Santana that the entire school is already aware of the fact that they're dating all but in name."

Blaine has spent the last month and a half watching the two of them cuddle during glee rehearsals, and listening to Santana angrily insist that they're "not lesbos." From what he understands, the situation has been going on a whole hell of a lot longer than a month and a half, and from what he knows of Santana (and her response when he tried to gently -- condescendingly, in retrospect -- tell her that coming out would be okay), he's stunned that this is happening right now.

"You merely pointed it out," he says slowly, disbelieving.

"You're just jealous because I succeeded where _you_ crashed and burned," Kurt says smugly, and Blaine blinks and then lightly shoves at his shoulder, laughing. Kurt snorts but doesn't retaliate; he slips his hand into the crook of Blaine's elbow. "I may have also mentioned that it could potentially be helpful if we weren't the only same-sex couple at the dance," he says. "And that it would no doubt make Brit very happy. I'm not sure which argument swayed her."

"I'm gonna go ahead and guess that it was the Brittany one," Blaine says, and he holds the door open.

He really likes doing stuff like holding doors. In the past, Kurt hasn't always loved it and expressed feelings about how he isn't a girl (a fact that, Blaine pointed out, he was well aware of). They got into one of their biggest arguments yet over it, but Blaine has toned the guy-chivalry down to a level that's acceptable for both of them and he lets Kurt reciprocate, and Kurt isn't unappreciative. Blaine is addicted to the glances that Kurt tosses him when he does stuff like this; the way that he _still_ looks startled and smugly pleased that someone would open a door for him or move through a crowd with a hand in the small of his back.

Kurt does it again now, glancing at Blaine as he steps past like he's the most amazing thing on school grounds, which is totally untrue, because Kurt is.

“Guys, come on,” Finn calls from where everybody's waiting at the concession stand that is apparently doubling as a coat check. “We're supposed to stay _together_ , remember?”

From the significant look that Finn shoots Kurt and the emphasis that he places on _together_ , Blaine is pretty sure that there is in fact a New Directions bodyguard squad plan in place. It's both very well-meaning and slightly terrifying.

"We're not the Brady Bunch, Finn." Kurt gracefully shrugs out of his overcoat as they're walking over. "We do occasionally take more than three steps outside of each others' orbits."

"I know that the actors got it on behind the scenes and everything, but glee would be a _really_ creepy Brady Bunch," Tina says, and Blaine is laughing when he feels hands on his shoulders, fingers on the lapels of his coat. He can't help it – he jumps; not enough for anyone standing around to notice, but enough for Kurt, who murmurs an amused, “Down, boy” into his ear and finishes pulling his coat off, gently tugging it down his arms. He steps around Blaine and says, “These two go together, please.”

The woman standing behind the counter must be someone's mom. She's got the standard McKinley mom uniform down -- faded jeans, a McKinley Titans long-sleeved T-shirt, mousy brown hair in a ponytail. She _was_ smiling, Blaine thinks. Until she saw Kurt peel Blaine out of his coat and step up in that fabulous sequined jacket, and she heard his voice.

Kurt holds both coats across the counter for four long seconds, his shoulders hunching higher with each passing one, before the woman finally reaches out and takes them. Blaine isn't freaked out or worried anymore; he isn't quite furious, because the woman doesn't do any worse than hesitate and shoot them a very wary look as she turns to hang the coats up, but he _is_ tremendously irritated. He has the sudden, irrational impulse to grab Kurt and haul him into a searing kiss right here in the lobby, but he's aware that that wouldn't be a great idea for a number of reasons.

So Blaine contents himself with returning the mother's unimpressed stare, and with appreciating Kurt's insanely intimidating icy glare, before he turns away from her and toward their friends. Everybody is talking, voice and laughter tumbling over each other; everyone but Rachel, who is watching the two of them with an angry set to her mouth and all-too-understanding eyes. She glares over Blaine's shoulder in the general direction of the coat check counter, and then she reaches out and grabs his hand in her tiny, strong grip. Blaine forgets sometimes that Rachel has spent her whole life being attuned to the kinds of reactions that other people don't necessarily notice. It's not always about noisy slurs or violence. It's about stares, too, and silent sneers, and Blaine is more than happy to ignore and rise above all of it, but he spent two years being single in tolerance paradise, and sometimes it's harder to get re-accustomed to the negative attention than he'd like to admit.

Rachel squeezes his hand, and he squeezes back.

“I didn't think of the coat check,” Kurt is muttering furiously to Mercedes, quiet enough that Blaine has to play it back in his head to figure out what he said.

“Wait, what?” Blaine asks, and then Kurt loudly, immediately says, “Mike! Who are you texting?”

Mike turns a startled glance on Kurt, but gamely answers, "Puck's already here," as he slips his phone into his pocket. "He's been texting about how much it sucks."

Several voices groan at the same time. "Ignore him. He's a baby," Quinn says crisply. "Come on; let's get inside."

Rachel pats Blaine's arm, warm and gentle, and she shoots him a long sympathetic glance before chasing down Finn to demand to know if he has their tickets. Blaine sets his shoulders and turns toward the ticket table -- and then he slowly smiles when he sees who's sitting behind it.

Ms. Pillsbury-Howell clasps her hands in delight. "Oh, my gosh," she says. "You all look _so_ wonderful; let me see you!" Mercedes and Kurt strike fabulous poses, Rachel twirls, and Santana looks terrifyingly smug; most of the rest of them laugh or shrug.

"Seriously, you guys clean up well," says the smiling dark-haired guy sitting beside her.

"Thanks, Dr. Hot Stuff," Santana purrs. Now that she's not wearing a coat anymore, Blaine can get an even better look at the rager of a print that she's somehow pulling off.

Ms. Pillsbury-Howell's eyebrows lower. " _Well!_ " she chirps, shooting Santana a quelling look. "Let's get you kids all ticketed and signed in, shall we?" As Finn and Rachel step up to hand over their tickets, Blaine glances at Brittany to gauge her reaction to Santana's blatant come-on. She's smiling happily, a bombshell in a pink dress that fits like a glove down to the hips, then loosely drapes down to about mid-thigh. Santana has already looked away from the married couple at the table and she's fixing Brittany's hair with a bemused smirk.

Blaine glances sideways. Kurt casts a significant look at the girls, then a relentlessly smug one at Blaine. His face is set in impish, teasing lines; on impulse, Blaine reaches out and catches his hand, and Kurt's expression softens into something much warmer. He presses his thumb into Blaine's palm, the pressure a silent reassurance, and he uses his other hand to pull their tickets out of his inner jacket pocket and place them on the table.

“Looking good, gentlemen,” says Ms. Pillsbury-Howell's husband, tossing them a jaunty salute and flipping through the list of students on his clipboard.

“I _love_ the jacket, Kurt,” Ms. Pillsbury-Howell herself says. She writes neat check marks on each of their tickets and settles them in a perfect stack with others. “You guys have _fun_ in there,” on 'fun,' she does this adorable, tiny jerk of her arm, like a reined in _rah-rah_ cheer, “okay?”

Blaine really likes Ms. Pillsbury-Howell. She's sweet and she means well, and no one can say that she isn't invested in her students' well-being or that she doesn't do everything in her power to help them. He's had a lot of talks with her, thanks to his being a transfer student and her status as McKinley's one and only guidance counselor. There's something weird in her manner right now, though; something almost like insincerity, though that isn't quite it, because he knows she's being genuine. It's like she knows something that he doesn't and she's pushing weirdly hard for them to have a good time.

He glances at Kurt, but Kurt doesn't seem to notice anything strange about Ms. Pillsbury-Howell's behavior; he's preening under the compliment with a light thank you and then tugging Blaine along after Rachel and Mercedes, who are laughing over a near-trip scenario caused by their dresses.

“Was that kind of...?” Blaine asks, a little hesitant. Kurt turns a questioning look on him, waiting with an eyebrow quirked, and Blaine suddenly feels incredibly paranoid. He shakes his head. "Never mind."

"Oooo-kay," Kurt intones slowly, still peering at him like he is a new and very strange species, and then Blaine is saved by the fact that they step through the doorway into the gym. His surprise as he stops short is genuine; it's not some kind of transparent attempt at a distraction.

"... You totally talked your way onto the decorating committee, didn't you?" Blaine manages after several shocked seconds.

Someone has pulled down all of the sports championship banners (which primarily belong to the Cheerios) that lined the ceiling, and the bleachers have been folded up into the walls and then hidden by enormous swathes of deep burgundy fabric. An actual dance floor has been laid out in front of the DJ's table, one of those shiny snap-together numbers that you can rent; Blaine's cousin had one at her wedding. It does a pretty good job of hiding a large chunk of the scuffed gymnasium floor. There are two small knots of people already testing it out, laughing and shaking their hips to Shakira; the majority of students are still hanging out along the sides of the gym, talking. Blaine remembers the "everybody stands around awkwardly until some of the popular kids start to dance, and then everybody suddenly thinks it's cool" phase from Bellefontaine.

The lights are down low and there is not a balloon or a glittery cardboard star to be found, in what Blaine thinks is probably a first for high school dances everywhere. Even more swags of burgundy fabric hide most of the DJ's booth, with a few gold accents. The entire effect is fairly subdued but edges toward a word that Blaine never would have thought applicable to a homecoming dance at McKinley High School: classy.

"There may have been some talking," Kurt confirms loftily, but he doesn't do very well at projecting the air of aloof ease that Blaine thinks he's going for. He's doing that thing he does when he's excited, going up on his toes before he catches himself and plants his heels again, and his eyes are shining. It's hard to pay attention to all of the faces turning to look at them when Blaine has this particular face right in front of him. He _does_ notice some unfriendly glances, though, and the fact that -- even though those looks are probably directed at glee as a whole -- the group tightens up around the two of them. It's all fairly subtle by McKinley standards, but it happens.

"He staged a hostile takeover," says Dan, coming out of the dimness to join them, his smile flashing bright and easy; Artie wheels up beside him. "Hey guys." Kurt was right on with his prediction that most guys were going to wear Dockers, a cheap button-up, and an ugly tie, but Blaine isn't surprised in the least to see that both Dan and Artie bucked the trend. Artie has his back to them as he bumps fists with Finn, but Blaine caught sight of a truly enormous bow tie before he turned away. Dan is in slim trousers with a dress shirt, tie, and vest, all in black and white, as chill as ever. If he wasn't so little, he'd look like he stepped out of a _GQ_ editorial spread; the fact that he's three inches shorter than even Blaine kills that effect, though.

"Dan backed my _coup d'etat_ of taste," Kurt says, somehow matter-of-fact and giddy at the same time.

"Dan toned down the _coup d'etat_ , too," Quinn says, in a murmured aside meant only for Blaine's ears. "There was originally talk about ribbons and doves." She pats Blaine's shoulder as he struggles not to laugh, and then steps several feet away to greet Artie.

Rachel, meanwhile, has butted in. "They've been working on it all week," she is saying, beaming at Kurt. "It was a prodigious amount of time and effort."

Dan spreads his hands wide and unassuming. "Kurt did all the hard stuff," he says modestly. "I just talked the committee out of quitting." (Blaine thinks, as much as he loves Kurt and his vision, that that probably _was_ the hard part.) Mercedes says a noisy, " _Hell_ no" a few feet away, drawing laughter from Quinn and Artie and Brittany, and Dan's eyes immediately flick toward her. His jaw drops for a split second, and then his smile flashes, brighter than before. "Excuse me for a sec, guys." They watch as he sidles over; Mercedes laughs and smiles at him after he taps her bare shoulder.

"I'm going to make that happen if it kills me," Kurt says, that scheming gleam in his eyes that Blaine knows all too well.

"I would back it," says Blaine thoughtfully. "Can we maybe _not_ kill you or matchmake right now, though?"

"School dances," Kurt points out, stubborn as always, "are an optimal time for matchmaking. Everyone is all hopped up on coupledom and dance hormones and 'Stairway to Heaven.' "

"I don't think dance hormones are a real th--"

Kurt sucks a sharp breath in through his teeth and says, all at once, "Oh dear sweet Judy in heaven." Blaine blinks, seeing that Kurt is looking beyond him rather than at him -- and then he spots Sasha bounding toward them, her shoes already lost somewhere in the dark gym, dragging her giant of a lacrosse player boyfriend behind her. She moves with all the energy and grace befitting the Cheerios' smallest tumbler, even barefoot, but Blaine knows that's not why Kurt is clutching his hand very, very hard.

"Holy crap," Blaine mutters, and then Sasha is upon the group; gushing something at Santana (who is staring at her like she's a bug, which is her pretty standard reaction to everything that Sasha does) and grabbing Brittany's hands to do a little hop together. Blaine dares to take a sidelong glance at Kurt and finds him practically quivering.

"And _you guys!_ " Sasha says, beaming at the two of them. Behind her, her boyfriend gives a small, wry wave, knowing he'll never get a word in edgewise (and apparently okay with that). "You're adorable!"

"Be nice," Blaine mutters out of the corner of his mouth while Sasha is still mid-compliment, and when Kurt squeezes his hand this time, he's pretty sure it's _supposed_ to hurt. He determinedly doesn't wince, and does smile very, very brightly at the sophomore. "Sasha, hey! You look great!"

It's not totally a lie. Sasha is adorable no matter what you put her in, and it's nice to see her out of Cheerios uniform. It's the first time he has ever seen her with her hair not straightened; it has been pulled into hundreds of tiny braids and then wound into one big graceful knot. Sue Sylvester would never approve the hairstyle for competitions, but it's pretty fabulous.

That said, the tiny aquamarine-pink-maroon bedazzled confection that Sasha is wearing is a monstrosity in every sense of the word.

"Thanks!" she chirps, and then she spins away to greet Quinn.

Kurt mouths something exaggerated at Blaine; he looks deeply, personally offended, like it is physically paining him not to express his horror. Blaine is torn between laughing, and agreeing without even needing to know what Kurt is saying.

"If you guys are muttering about that dress, I want in," Whitney says over Kurt's shoulder, and they both jump.

"It is _crazy_ ," Mercedes agrees, her voice low.

Blaine hisses and motions for all of them to talk more quietly; Kurt, meanwhile, is just raising one eyebrow at Whitney, who is decked out and gawky in an explosion of hot pink satin. It features an enormous rose applique that looks like it is trying to eat the bodice. The look on Kurt's face is haughty, disbelieving, and totally priceless.

"My mom hates pink and flowers," Whitney says baldly. "Worth it." Then she trips away on pink heels that she clearly doesn't quite know how to walk on.

"That girl needs help," says Mercedes, watching her go. "The psychological kind."

" _Next time_ ," Kurt vows, voice pitched for Blaine's and Mercedes's ears alone, "less time on decorating; more time on dress-shopping. So much help is needed." He sounds both despairing and excited. "So much."

"You know it," Mercedes agrees, grinning, and she and Kurt flicker their fingers together, then -- well, they would normally each brush through their own bangs, but Blaine notes with bemusement that neither of them actually touches their hair this time. There has apparently been too much time, effort, and hairspray invested to risk screwing it up, even for the patented Kurt-and-Mercedes version of a fist-bump.

"You're only allowed to come if you'll be honest about how dresses look," Kurt says, his eyes flicking toward the dance floor as the song changes, then back to Blaine.

"I wouldn't want to be rude," Blaine protests, and Kurt and Mercedes make twin sounds of frustration and _oh, no no no_.

"Telling anyone that she looks good in that much pink tulle and aquamarine satin is a cruelty, not a kindness," Kurt tells him tartly. "She looks like a baby drag queen, and not in the fabulous way."

Blaine is trying not to laugh, because that isn't very polite but it's _funny_. Mercedes is out and out laughing, anyway, and from the quirk of Quinn's mouth and Mike's sudden burst of laughter a few feet away, he's pretty sure they heard it, too. Sasha herself, thankfully, is nowhere in the immediate vicinity. " _Quieter_ when you're saying girls look like drag queens," Blaine half-groans, half-pleads, not quite managing to stifle his first few snorts. "Quieter."

"I," Kurt says airily, "cannot be tamed, and neither can fashion." Then Rachel has grabbed his wrist to demand his opinion on some sort of musical theater showdown that she is having with Whitney, and Kurt actually flounces as she drags him away.

Mercedes companionably pats Blaine's elbow, still grinning. "He'll be back," she promises.

Blaine huffs a quieter laugh. "I know." That wasn't even _close_ to a fight; that was teasing, plain and simple, even if he _does_ sometimes wish that Kurt would lower his voice when it comes to sharp-edged critique of people who Blaine actually likes.

"Oh, no, he's gonna be _right_ back," Mercedes says. "Tina requested Britney." Blaine stares at her for several seconds, then over at Brittany, who is clapping her hands at something that Finn just said, Santana rolling her eyes beside her. Mercedes follows his gaze and laughs, loud and full-throated. "Boy, you are _dumb_ sometimes. _Britney_ Britney. 'Hit Me Baby One More Time'? 'With a taste of your lips I'm on a ride'?"

"--Oh," says Blaine.

"Right," Mercedes is still laughing at him; " 'oh.' Come on." Before Blaine is entirely sure of what's happening, she has him by the arm and is tugging him away from the relative safety of the New Directions bubble and toward the dance floor, where several big groups of students are dancing to the dulcet tones of Sir Mix A Lot.

"Mercedes, 'Baby Got Back' is really not my jam," Blaine tries to protest.

"It's _nobody's_ jam, Blaine," she says. "But we're gonna rock it anyway. Rachel!"

Blaine glances back toward the New Directions, kind of hoping for some help, but he sees Rachel's face light up with a smile and then with scary determination, and she starts pushing and cajoling people onto the dance floor behind them. There will be no help from that quarter. But at least, he reflects as Mercedes spots Sam approaching and grabs him too, there will be people to look stupid alongside him.

(They all look very, _very_ stupid, but it's hard to care when they're having this much fun.)

(As predicted, when the song changes, Kurt pops up before the first verse of "Circus" is even halfway finished.)

* * *

There's an awkward pause during the introduction to the song that plays after Mr. Schuester wandered up to say hello (Santana muttered, "Vest," and Blaine was left in the dark as to why Mercedes and several others started laughing) and then went back to the sidelines again. Students glance around, clearly trying to figure out whether this is a slow-dance song. Blaine doesn't recognize it, but whatever it is, it's got _just_ enough of a beat to confuse people. The first few couples start to sway, though, and the rest of the lemmings gradually follow suit, right down to Finn and Rachel beside them.

Blaine looks at his boyfriend. Kurt is watching him quietly, his face more hopeful than he probably realizes. For all his (occasionally terrifying amounts of) strength and fierceness, Kurt still has these moments, sometimes, where Blaine remembers why he misjudged him so thoroughly when they first met; why he thought that Kurt was vulnerable and fragile and needed protection. He knows now that the last two points aren't the truth, no matter how easily wounded Kurt's pride can be, but the naked vulnerability is shining through in his expression right now. 

Blaine could never disappoint that face. 

He holds out his hand, and Kurt slowly begins to smile and he slips his fingers through Blaine's, and steps in. It takes them a minute to get it worked out; they shift back and forth between who's in which traditional pose, because they keep both taking the same position at the same time. They're both laughing by the time that they finally wind up with Kurt's hand on Blaine's waist and Blaine's palm on Kurt's shoulder. Unlike just about everyone else here, they keep their other hands laced together.

It's awkward at first, trying to settle in and fit their bodies together comfortably and not step on each others' shoes (and that last one is hard, because Kurt has big feet). It's all the more awkward knowing -- and Blaine doesn't look away from Kurt's face, but he is well aware that it's happening -- that everyone in the immediate vicinity is watching them. From what Kurt has said, the two of them are McKinley's very first out gay couple, and while Blaine is happy to be a trailblazer in the abstract -- in the concrete moment, the back of his neck is itching under the scrutiny.

Kurt's mouth is set in a firm line and his shoulder is tense under Blaine's hand; Blaine knows this posture all too well. It's Kurt's defiant _I'm a bad bitch and I'm going to be myself no matter what you try to spit out through your teeth, you small-minded pedants_ ramrod-straight spine. His face has gone a little white, his eyes focused on Blaine's forehead. This isn't right. For all the difficulties that come with being the first at anything like this, it's supposed to be a happy moment. It's the first time Kurt has danced with a boy at homecoming; it's the first time that Blaine has, too, but he cares more about how important it is to Kurt.

Blaine leans down and lays his head on Kurt's shoulder, face turned in toward his neck, and he slips his hand under Kurt's arm to hold the back of his shoulder. Kurt stays stiff for several more seconds, then starts to relax against him, his arm carefully looping around Blaine's waist. They sway together, barely lifting their feet. Blaine rocks their clasped hands back and forth and is rewarded by a small, bemused huff of breath. He sees Finn watching them from a few feet away, a smiling Rachel up on her toes and saying something into his ear, and Blaine shuts his eyes. He focuses on Kurt's chest rising and falling against his; on Kurt's warmth and how tightly they're holding each others' hand. The sequins in Kurt's jacket are rough against his cheek.

" _Trying hard not to hear but they talk so loud; their piercing sounds fill my ears, try to fill me with doubt; yet I know that the goal is to keep me from falling. But nothing's greater than the rush that comes with your embrace, and in this world of loneliness, I see your face._ "

The song may be overwrought, but it _is_ making Blaine press his fingers into Kurt's shoulderblade. Kurt slowly curls around him, leaning down until he's breathing quiet and warm just above Blaine's ear.

"These lyrics seem needlessly dramatic," Kurt murmurs as the female vocalist sings that she keeps bleeding, keeps keeps bleeding love. Blaine is still laughing when he hears the shuffle of nearby feet and unfriendly, all-male laughter; Kurt goes stiff against him, which is all the confirmation that Blaine needs to start having flashbacks to what it felt like to stand in front of half the school dripping with room-temperature fruit punch. He lifts his head but before he can even open his eyes, there's another scuffle and Coach Beiste's instantly recognizable voice says, " _Come_ on, morons; _outside_."

When he looks, he finds the football coach leading two boys away (from the backs of their heads, Blaine is pretty sure that one of them is the genius who likes to make off-color jokes in History) with each hand clenched in the back of a shirt collar. He glances at Kurt, who shuts his eyes, wordlessly shakes his head, and looks like he wants to be pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. They've stopped dancing. All of the couples in the general vicinity are watching them.

Then Blaine suddenly doesn't have such a good view of Mallory-from-his-Spanish-class dancing with her boyfriend and openly staring, anymore, because Santana has Brittany by the waist and has firmly parked them directly inside Blaine's line of sight, just inches away. Her mouth set into one of the maddest lines he's ever seen it in (and Blaine isn't, to be entirely honest, sure who her anger is directed at), Santana reaches out and shoves his shoulder hard enough that he rocks back onto his other foot.

"Oh please. Like you're going to let two puckheads stop you from being the gayest things outside of the men's room at a George Michael concert," she scoffs. Blaine would be willing to bet that Brittany didn't get all of that, but she has her arms wound around Santana's neck and is nodding earnestly.

Kurt glares at her, his hand clenched tightly in the back of Blaine's suit jacket and two spots of color burning bright high in his cheeks. "Get new gay jokes, Santana," he says sharply; "that one's almost old enough to apply for its driver's license."

Blaine and Santana open their mouths in the same instant, Blaine honestly not sure if he's going to defuse the situation or snap something that will make it worse, but Brittany speaks first. "You should dance," she tells them plaintively. "Everything's better when you're dancing."

Santana makes eye contact with someone around Blaine, and he slowly realizes that everyone has pulled in tight around them; Mike and Tina, Finn and Rachel, Whitney holding Artie's hand over his head as he slowly spins his chair, Mercedes and Sam, Quinn and Dan, and Puck and Lauren, who look more rumpled than Blaine wants to think about, Lauren in a shimmery black and gold dress with a cardigan and Puck in what looks suspiciously like the outfits the guys had worn last year at Sectionals. They're all half-assed dancing and they are all _angry_. Even Sasha and newest New Direction Joseph, who are tiny and about as threatening as a pair of puppies and Blaine doesn't even know where they _came_ from, look ready to rip someone's head off.

It's a charged, furious, bizarrely touching moment.

"Screw those guys," Blaine tells Kurt, by which he mostly means: _everybody's got our backs; let's screw with the rest of these staring jerks_. He says it because he means it, but also because he privately thinks that if he and Kurt keep standing there looking upset, the New Directions are going to start a brawl. He knows that Kurt gets it when his smile turns fond and hard-edged at the same time, and he draws Blaine in even closer, and his hand drops a little lower in the small of Blaine's back.

" _Yet everyone around me thinks that I'm going crazy. Maybe, maybe. But I don't care what they say, I'm in love with you. They try to pull me away but they don't know the truth._ "

It's not such a bad song.

The very next one is "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" and Blaine and Kurt manage three swaying steps together before hysteria bubbles up out of Blaine's mouth and he totally loses it.

"Who is _picking_ these?" Kurt demands, and Blaine manages, "I don't know! I don't know!" as he tries to calm down. The fact that Tina is giggling beside them and Santana is snorting on their other side isn't helping at all.

Bryan Adams sings, " _So tell me have you ever really, really, really loved a woman?_ " and Kurt indignantly says, " _No_ ," and Blaine laughs into Kurt's neck until he can't breathe.

* * *

“I can't believe Kurt _did_ all of this,” Blaine says, quietly awed as he watches his boyfriend boogie down with Rachel, Tina, and Sasha on the dance floor. He looks like he's very seriously doing the "Single Ladies" dance to Rihanna's newest single.

“He went pretty nuts over it,” Finn confirms beside him, leaning back against the concessions table with his arms folded. Blaine is aware, without even looking, that Finn is sneaking a sideways glance at him. “He said you guys were a little freaked about what jerks might do.” It's almost, not quite, a question.

Blaine shuts his eyes for a second, and then he admits, “ _I_ was freaked out. _Kurt_ was totally fine. He organized ... whatever exactly he organized, to make me feel better.”

“Dude, I'm just glad he's on our side,” Finn says frankly, like the thought just occurred to him, and Blaine is incredibly grateful that Finn doesn't mention anything about courage or freak-outs. “Do you _know_ how scary it would be to try to go against all his manipulative genius stuff?”

He laughs, finally glancing over at Finn. “No,” Blaine says, “and I don't want to.”

“I mean, he got the _wrestling_ team to promise they'd back us up.”

Blaine is fully aware that he is making a ridiculous face, primarily thanks to his eyebrows, as he stares at Finn and says dubiously, “ _Really_?”

“I guess they're all so scared of Lauren, they'll do pretty much anything she wants,” Finn says. "I still don't know how he got her to come." He sounds a little awed.

This seems like as good of a time as any to do some reconnaissance about Kurt's activities; Blaine isn't sure that Kurt himself will admit to all of them. For all his love of the spotlight, Kurt has a selfless streak a mile wide. “What … else did Kurt do, Finn?”

Finn shoots him a long, careful look. “Well,” he says slowly, “I guess it's not a secret any _more_ – he said if he was gonna be here, someone needed to make sure that the gym didn't look like a tornado went through the prom scene from an eighties movie, so he, like, took over the decorating committee. He talked a bunch of teachers he said you guys are cool with into being chaperones.” Blaine suddenly understands the presence of Mr. Schuester, Coach Beiste, Mr. Williams, and Mrs. Linkletter, and why Ms. Pillsbury-Howell and her husband had been taking tickets at the door. But Finn apparently isn't done. “I'm pretty sure he bribed Luke Simmons into letting him buy tickets for two guys while Luke was selling them at lunch, and he had Rachel's dads talk to Figgins about how much an ACLU lawsuit would cost the school district--”

“Holy shit,” says Blaine blankly.

“--and then he got everybody in glee to say they'd come. You know, so we could watch out for you guys.”

Blaine has a sudden flashback to a pre-rehearsal discussion two weeks ago; Puck saying that dances are for _suck-ups_ , Quinn refusing to go stag, shy Joseph shaking his head when asked if he was going, Whitney sullenly announcing the inherent misogyny of the entire endeavor, Santana buffing her nails and saying she'd rather bone Finnocence again than go to homecoming...

As crazy as the New Directions are, the more time that Blaine spends with them, the more he understands why Kurt _had_ to come back last year.

Kurt, who spent the last week systematically destroying each and every potential obstacle in their path and finding ways to build as wide of a safe-space bubble around them (around _Blaine_ ) as possible. Kurt, who keeps astonishing Blaine more and more, which is pretty unreal considering how incredible Blaine already thought he was.

Blaine's voice is a little thick and astounded, but no less genuine for it, when he says, “Thanks, Finn.”

"It's cool," Finn says lightly, like he doesn't even have to think about it and it's no big deal; he claps Blaine's shoulder. "You're one of us now, and besides, you're totally, like, my brother-in-law, except not since you guys aren't married..."

Finn is talking himself into a corner here; Blaine spends a whole lot of time at the Hummel/Hudson house, and he has seen this before. It's really just kinder to stop Finn, who's well-meaning and has been great to Blaine -- and Kurt generally seems happy with him, too -- but still sometimes gets awkward. "I know what you mean," Blaine says, and Finn immediately looks relieved. Blaine spots Puck approaching out of the corner of his eye, which means that if he ducks out, he won't be leaving Finn here alone.

"I just tripped three douchebags on the dance floor," Puck says, swinging in on Finn's other side and grabbing a messy handful of chips out of a bowl. "You're good to go, bro."

Blaine says, "Uh, thanks," (he really is grateful, but it feels a little weird to thank someone for that) and then steps away as Finn and Puck bump fists.

Mike is the first to see him approaching, dancing behind Tina with an arm wrapped around her waist while she laughs. He grins at Blaine and waves him on, and Blaine lets his feet and his hips pick up the beat as he soft-shoes over. Sasha's arms are up over her head; Blaine grabs her hand and gives her a twirl, and she goes with it -- pink-blue skirts twirling -- with a shriek of surprise that becomes an appreciative laugh as soon as she realizes who he is. Mike whoops at them.

Rachel is, of course, singing. " _There goes the dreams we used to say; there goes the time we spent away..._ " She doesn't seem to notice as Mercedes, Tina, and Quinn come in on the " _Oops!_ " that immediately follow her lines. "How have we never done this song in glee?!" Rachel demands, raising her voice over the music, and Blaine good-naturedly shrugs while Sasha claps her hands in approval and Tina says, "We _should!_ " before starting in on the next verse with Rachel. They're all in a very loose sort of semi-circle, and Blaine winds up -- by design -- beside Kurt, who's pulling purposely-ridiculous fierce faces as he moves and who presses his arm up against Blaine's.

Mike and Tina are still cheerfully grinding to the beat together; the next group over includes Dan and Mercedes laughing and dancing in each others' arms, failing at some kind of modern take on a swing dance, and Santana slinking and singing along with Brittany, the two of them not touching but very clearly dancing together.

Blaine thinks about dancing like that with Kurt, their faces inches apart and their hips sliding sinuously to the beat, and his face grows hot and his hands itch to reach out for Kurt even as he registers how unrealistic of an idea that is. William McKinley High School barely tolerates the two of them holding hands between classes; it's definitely not ready for the kind of movements that Blaine has in mind.

And it's a little hard, because, not to in any way diminish the struggles that Santana and Brittany will go through and have gone through (and that's a point, Blaine thinks in retrospect, that he should have stressed when he tried to talk to Santana and got woefully sidetracked and then viciously shut down), and not that Santana could do anything about it, but -- there's a double standard involved. When two conventionally-attractive girls grind up on each other, the guys on the hockey team think it's hot and they get left alone. When two boys do the same, it's threatening and gross and they definitely _don't_ get left alone.

But that doesn't make what Santana and Brittany are openly doing tonight any less brave, Blaine thinks, and he should have said something like _that_ to Santana, too. Just as the thought crosses his mind, Santana catches his eye; she stares at him for several seconds, then gives a curt nod and suddenly laughs as Brittany says something to her.

So Blaine dances beside Kurt, the two of them sneaking sideways glances and making each other laugh with progressively sillier moves; Blaine sings along with Rachel and Sasha and Tina and Quinn, and it doesn't take much to nudge Kurt into joining in. All of them are breathless by the time they get to the final iteration of the chorus and finish, " _If he messed up, you gotta hit 'em up._ " Under laughter and cheerful chatter as the opening lines of a Trey Songz hit blast over the speakers, Blaine rests his hand on Kurt's elbow and asks, "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure," Kurt says breathlessly, and, with everybody cheering Sasha's fierce take on the guest solo, they slip through the gym. Nobody pays them any attention as they weave through a bunch of guys from the lacrosse team and then skirt the edge of the gym; Sasha, as usual when she starts rapping, is owning the floor and causing a commotion.

" _If a bitch try to get cute, I'm'a snuff her; throw a lotta money at her then yell, 'Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her,' then yell 'Fuck her.' Then I'm'a go get my Louisville Slugger! Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm really such a lady,_ " Sasha's voice drifts from the dance floor, perfectly in time with the amplified Nicki Minaj (and shouting the real lyrics over the awkward silence that has replaced the curses in the censored recording), and Kurt is a few steps behind but Blaine can hear him laughing.

"No one that petite and adorable should be that good at this," Kurt is saying as Blaine tugs him into the shadows of the folded-up bleachers, and Blaine has to smile, thinking of the awed, stunned silence that had reigned in the choir room after Sasha _killed_ both Rihanna and Eminem's parts in "Love the Way You Lie" last month. It's quieter here, pulled away from the main crowds and the spotlights and the speaker system. There are a few couples taking advantage of the comparative darkness to make out on the edges of the gym, but Blaine has pulled well away from the nearest of them.

"I know," he says, stepping into Kurt's personal space, and Kurt rests a hand on his elbow; "she's so good it's scary."

"Not that I'm not in full agreement," Kurt says, "because I am; she's totally fierce. But," he peers at Blaine, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and leans in to inquire, "are we _really_ standing in the dark to discuss Sasha's talent when we could be out there watching Finn make an ass out of himself set to Green Day?"

Blaine laughs; he has seen enough of Finn's dance moves by now that he doesn't need to glance over his shoulder to have an idea of what is happening on the floor as Billy Joe Armstrong sings about American idiots. "No," he says. "No, I just wanted to--" He stops, and consciously starts again. "I talked to Finn."

"Oh God," says Kurt immediately.

Laughing again, more bemused this time, Blaine says, "It's nothing bad, though now I'm kind of curious about what you think he said--"

He straightens up in a clear attempt to regain his dignity, wrapping one arm around his ribs and settling his opposite elbow on top. "Nothing," he says unconvincingly, gesturing with his raised hand. "Absolutely nothing, what are we talking about?"

"Finn told me about all of the stuff that you did, Kurt. To make this work."

"Oh," says Kurt, flipping his fingers dismissively, "that."

Blaine reaches out and takes his hand, and Kurt's head tilts to the side. "It's not nothing, dummy." He rubs his thumb across the skin between Kurt's thumb and forefinger, and Kurt finally lowers his raised arm so that they're holding hands at their sides. "It's a big _deal_. I can't believe how many hoops you jumped through." Kurt gives a tiny shrug of his shoulders, sequins rippling, but the corners of his mouth are faintly tugged upward. "Did you seriously sic Rachel's dads on Principal Figgins?"

Kurt's sudden smirk is really all the answer that Blaine needs. "It wasn't _that_ hard," he says. "Misters Berry were very happy to bring their connections within the ACLU to Figgins's attention, and you know how I feel about interior decorating."

"It's the most romantic thing," Blaine says, speaking slowly to make _sure_ that his point comes across, "anyone has ever done for me."

"Well," Kurt says softly, after several seconds. "You know me; Mr. Romance," and then he gives his awkward little trill of a laugh, the one that Blaine finds hopelessly endearing. Smiling broadly, Blaine cups the side of Kurt's face in his hand and rests their foreheads together.

"Hey, ladyboys," barks an unfriendly voice, and Blaine feels Kurt's sharp huff of breath just as much as he hears it. "Go ahead and take your gay-ass crap somewhere they'll appreciate it. Like Hell."

Kurt and Blaine both have their own reactions to the ignorant things that people say to them. Kurt occasionally projects icy aloofness, but most of the time, he raises his head and verbally lunges for the jugular; Blaine doesn't know anyone who's faster and more vicious with an insulting quip. Blaine, on the other hand, tends to remain outwardly calm even if his heart is pounding. He raises his hands to show that he's not a threat and is nonchalant and downright friendly. He smiles as much as he can, because it unsettles bullies and pisses them off and they don't know how to respond to that.

Blaine turns to face the speaker. He's an anonymous big guy who had apparently been macking on his date about 10 feet away until their gayness mortally offended him; Blaine doesn't even recognize him. Kurt draws in a breath and opens his mouth, but for once, Blaine gets there first.

"Hi," he says pleasantly, and he's treated to the sight of Mr. Anonymous looking momentarily surprised and discomfited. "You know what would be fantastic? If you went there yourself."

Kurt's fingers curl tightly into the crook of Blaine's elbow, and while Blaine doesn't turn to look at him, Kurt's voice says matter-of-factly, "I realize that that was difficult for your steroid-soaked pea brain to comprehend, so let me spell it out for you: go to hell, troglodyte."

The guy steps away from his date, who has crossed her arms over her chest and looks tremendously annoyed. "Fine," he snaps. "Laugh it up. See how much jokes and your fag special rights help you now." The closer he gets, the more mountainous he looks; Blaine is actually going to have to crane his neck to look him in the eyes.

"Actually, it should probably be 'fag rights'; 'fag special rights' is a little redundant, don't you think?" Blaine asks, with every bit of kindly condescension in his body, and the guy's face goes _hard_. Blaine doesn't think about it; he just steps forward, like he's going to step in front of Kurt, but that doesn't work because Kurt does the exact same thing at the same time.

“Hello, gentlemen,” says a voice that never fails to make the hairs on the back of Blaine's neck stand up, and Sue Sylvester comes out of the shadows.

Afterward, Blaine will never be able to remember exactly what Coach Sylvester said. He will just remember the thuggish senior's face and how it shifted from anger to uncertainty to confusion to unease and then finally to outright nostrils-flaring, mouth-hanging-open terror. He will remember _how fast_ the guy turned tail and got the hell out of dodge, leaving Kurt and Blaine alone with the woman who Blaine is privately convinced is a monster in a track suit. Blaine doesn't dare look away from her, but he can feel Kurt clutching his elbow hard enough that he thinks it's going to leave marks.

"Porcelain," Coach Sylvester says, after a tense pause. "Porcelain's Polly Pocket of a boytoy." She looks at them for a long moment, and Blaine can't shake the slightly hysterical feeling that she's staring at his hair and curling her lip in disgust, and then she sweeps past and is gone.

Kurt's eyes are almost as enormous as Blaine is sure his own are.

"You recruited Sue Sylvester?" Blaine finally manages, incredulous.

"I didn't think she would actually _come_ ," Kurt babbles. "She told me that I was wasting valuable time in which she could be practicing her muay thai skills for the alabaster belt competition in Tierra del Fuego and then she kicked me out of her office."

"You recruited _Sue Sylvester_ ," Blaine repeats, and before Kurt can judge him for being a (stunned) broken record, he leans in and kisses him. Kurt makes a startled sound into his mouth and his hand flutters at Blaine's shoulder for a second before he pushes him back.

"What are you doing?" Kurt hisses.

"I told you I was going to gay up homecoming with you," Blaine says, like it's a perfectly reasonable response, and Kurt stares at him for several long seconds before he starts to laugh.

"Are you all right?" Kurt asks, finally, reaching out as if he needs to be sure that Blaine is still standing there. "Did that neanderthal give you a concussion while I wasn't looking?"

"I'm _fine_ , Kurt," Blaine promises, letting him brush a hand across his upper arm. Kurt shoots him one hell of a bitchface dubious look, and Blaine's heart is still thundering, but it's the truth when he says: "I swear. I'm good. We're good."

Kurt finally exhales, the tense set of his shoulders coming down, and it's Blaine's turn to reach out for him. "Why didn't you tell me what you were doing this week?" he asks gently.

"I don't know," Kurt admits. "It seemed more romantic to keep it secret at the time. In retrospect, that was slightly ... stupid. I'm sorry."

"What can you possibly be sorry for?" Blaine asks, so surprised he almost laughs.

"I should have let you in on the plans," Kurt says. "And _clearly_ I could have done a better job."

" _What_ ," says Blaine, and he cups Kurt's face in both of his hands, "are you _talking_ about?"

"I seem to remember," and Kurt's first few words are awkward, until Blaine lets up in his grip on his cheeks, "promising a 100% harassment-free high school dance experience."

Blaine isn't sure that he has ever loved Kurt Hummel as much as he does in this moment, huddled together beneath the folded-up bleachers while strobe lights flash and several hundred sweaty high school students dance to "Jump Around."

Kurt finishes: "This has been 85% at best."

"Don't be ridiculous," Blaine says, and Kurt furrows his eyebrows at him. "It's definitely at least 90."

Kurt exhales, almost but not quite snorting; it's a gentle, amused, slightly vulnerable breath as he shuts his eyes. Blaine brushes his thumb across Kurt's cheek -- and catches movement out of the corner of his eye. He automatically half-turns, just to get a quick look and figure out if they're going to need faculty intervention again, and he finds that it's actually a member of the faculty.

Mr. Schuester is standing a couple feet away; he has his arms folded and he looks kind of like he just finished a scramble across the gym. He meets Blaine's eyes, looking somber but almost ashamed, and then he glances away and says something to the couple who have been staring ever since Coach Sylvester blew in, and the two of them sulkily untangle from each other and head for the dance floor.

Blaine realizes belatedly that Mr. Schue is standing between the nearest students and Blaine and Kurt. He's blocking them.

It's unexpected, but nice. Really nice.

Blaine thinks about progress, and about familiarity breeding acceptance, and about the teachers who are stationed around the gymnasium because Kurt took them aside and expressed his discomfort, and about the small army on the dance floor that was ready to go to war for them. He looks back to Kurt and takes a deep breath. "We'll totally improve the percentage at winter ball," he promises.

Kurt opens his eyes and blinks at him, and then Blaine finds himself with a sudden sequined armful. He staggers backward a step under the unexpected onslaught (Kurt is _strong_ , and also -- while Blaine would never in a million years be stupid enough to say this out loud -- not particularly light), then pushes forward into the hug. He fiercely wraps his arms around Kurt; as fiercely as Kurt is holding onto him. They stand there in silence as "Jump Around" fades out and the DJ starts saying something indistinct about a Corsica with its lights on in the parking lot.

"...Mr. Schue is watching us," Kurt says, his mouth muffled by Blaine's shoulder.

"I know," Blaine mutters. "He means well but I'm trying to pretend it's not happening."

There is a peal of laughter against Blaine's jacket, and then Kurt stands up straight, his face shining. They smile at each other quietly, Kurt's fingers hooked in the cuff of Blaine's sleeve, and then the DJ's microphone cuts out and "Bad Romance" kicks in.

Kurt's eyes go comically wide.

Within 20 seconds, they're back on the dance floor.

Everyone howls, " _I want your loving and I want your revenge; you and me could write a bad romance_ " all together, laughing and jumping and stomping. Rachel's face is scrunched up as she belts; Dan and Mike are making a raise-the-roof move look insanely complicated and graceful. Artie has Sasha on one knee and Quinn on the other, all of them shouting the lyrics and pumping their fists in time with the beat. Finn, Sam, and Joseph all look a little out of their element, but they're gamely bopping, Finn grinning to beat the band.

Lauren has a fistful of Puck's shirt. Whitney is doing remarkably credible monster claws for a girl who has gotten into near-brawls with half the club for insisting that Lady Gaga is a talentless hack. Kurt, Tina, and Mercedes are doing a jumbled version of what _has_ to have been a choreographed dance routine, with Brittany jumping in just in time for the one-hand-on-the-hip-and-wave-wave-wave move. Santana has her head thrown back in a delighted laugh, in one of her most genuine moments that Blaine has ever witnessed.

Kurt sings " _Love, love, love, I want your love_ " directly to Blaine, pointing at him and thumping his hand over his heart.

* * *

It's technically Saturday morning by the time that everybody leaves their post-homecoming triumphant meal at Breadstix. The waitstaff looked like it collectively wanted to kill them, so Blaine teamed up with Rachel to be the responsible (read: annoying) ones making sure that their group, spread across three tables thanks to the inclusion of Sasha's boyfriend and several of his teammates as well as three wrestlers, left an obscene tip. They'd all gone their separate ways in the parking lot, shouting and laughing and waving. Brittany hugged Blaine hard enough that his ribs still hurt.

"Well," Kurt says, firmly in Blaine's personal space in the backseat of the car while Finn is saying an extended goodnight to Rachel at her door. " _That_ was surprisingly successful in the end."

Blaine starts laughing, automatically resting a hand on Kurt's waist as Kurt leans over him. "It was," he agrees. "Do you think the truce with the lacrosse and wrestling teams will last?"

"I think Sasha won't let that boyfriend of hers touch her unless he rallies the team, and that those other boys are never going to not find Lauren terrifying, so -- yes," Kurt says, his breath hot just beneath Blaine's ear, "I think it actually might." He presses his mouth there, then to the slight swell behind his ear, and Blaine shudders. "I should have thought of rallying the troops earlier. But I didn't..."

Kurt doesn't finish and he doesn't kiss Blaine's neck again, either; he just hovers quietly, like he can't find the words or can't quite get them out of his mouth.

"I don't know about you," Blaine admits, "but I kind of didn't want to ask for help. How stupid is that?"

Kurt leans back and immediately shakes his head. "It's not stupid," he says. "--Well, it _is_ stupid, but I did the same thing. I like to think that I can handle things myself." _That_ , Blaine thinks, remembering when he was the only one who knew about the escalating bullying that Kurt was facing at McKinley, _is the understatement of the century_.

"You can; we both can," Blaine points out. They're both smart, highly capable, and much stronger than people tend to give them credit for due to Blaine's size, Kurt's voice and interests, and their shared sexual orientation. They don't _need_ a constant Secret Service detail following them around. "It's just -- maybe it's not such a bad thing to let people who care step in once in a while." Beat. "Even if they _are_ a little overenthusiastic." Blaine is mostly thinking of stepping out of a men's room stall earlier in the evening and being confronted by a stone-faced Lauren Zizes standing guard by the urinals with her arms folded.

"Does this mean you're on board for prom?" Kurt asks, lifting an eyebrow at him.

"As long as I get to be a part of the planning process this time," says Blaine, grinning, and Kurt beams and pushes him back against the door so he can seal the deal with his mouth. The backseat of a tiny car is really not the easiest place to make out. The handle is digging into Blaine's back and Kurt accidentally kneels on his leg, and Blaine's ankle is tangled in the seatbelt on Kurt's side of the car. But Blaine sinks his hand into Kurt's hair -- which he is allowed to touch, now that the evening is almost over -- and pulls him down as closely as they can manage, and he kisses Kurt as slowly and languidly as he has wanted to all night. Kurt melts against him and murmurs something indistinct and perilously close to a moan into his mouth.

"Holy crap," says a muffled, involuntary-sounding startled voice, and Kurt abruptly jerks away. Still pressed against the door, Blaine turns just enough to get a look out the window. "Sorry!" Finn looks like he's covering his eyes, which is pretty funny, given that he's standing there on the sidewalk with his back already to the car. "Sorry! What're you guys even--?"

"Oh, shut up, Finn," Kurt says, snappish, and the car rocks as he huffily pushes himself back into his own seat. "It's nothing that I haven't had to walk in on between you and Rachel, then you and Quinn, then you and Rachel again."

Finn doesn't say anything, and Blaine takes pity on him. "You can look now," he calls wryly, struggling to pull himself out of his awkwardly-positioned slump, and Kurt grabs his arm and hauls him up.

The front door opens. "Sorry," Finn says, peering around the headrest and into the backseat, where Kurt is pulling Blaine's foot out of the seatbelt it's caught in. "Whoa. Sorry. I wasn't ... really expecting -- that. I'd, um, hang out for a while, but it's, like, 12:45; I'm pretty sure Burt will turn us into pumpkins if we're not home in 10 minutes."

Getting his legs back under himself and his seatbelt buckled, Blaine glances across the backseat. The corners of Kurt's mouth have quirked upward, like he's almost smiling despite himself. "We can't have that," he drawls, crossing one leg neatly over the other, and Blaine knows that that means he and Finn are cool.

From Finn's momentary grin before he slides into the driver's seat, Finn knows that too. As he shuts the front door and turns the car on, Blaine slides a hand across the empty middle seat, palm up. He doesn't glance over at Kurt or give any indication that he's doing it, but the car pulls away from the curb and it's only about three seconds before he feels Kurt's hand wrap around his.

"For prom," Kurt says, low enough that Finn will be able to hear his voice but not what he's saying (Finn snaps on the radio and starts loudly singing along with "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," because Finn is more perceptive and much kinder than a lot of people give him credit for), "we're getting a live band." From the sound of Kurt's quiet determination, he fought and lost the battle to have live music at homecoming tonight.

"Only if we can organize a giant choreographed group dance number," Blaine says, and, over Kurt's immediate snort of laughter, he mouths the first few lines of the Fatboy Slim song from _She's All That_.

"I think something could be arranged," Kurt says thoughtfully, a glint in his eyes; Blaine is pretty sure now that there's going to be a giant choreographed group dance number at their prom next year.

Blaine huffs a soft laugh, then sings, " _Cold beer, hot lights, my sweet romantic teenage nights,_ " along with Finn and the radio. Finn sticks a hand back between the two front seats and gives him a big thumbs-up as Blaine hums the falsetto " _Ooh, ooh_ " that follows. They both enthusiastically start rocking out to the piano solo; enough that the car shakes at the red light Finn has stopped at.

"Are you two seriously head-banging to Billy Joel?" Kurt demands, staring at Blaine and the back of Finn's seat like they've both grown two heads.

Blaine pulls Kurt's hand in and holds it over his own heart as he leans across the backseat and croons directly to him, " _Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies and the king and queen of the prom_..."

Kurt giggles (seriously -- giggles, which means Blaine is doing _something_ right), covering his eyes with his hand. "I am incredibly embarrassed for you right now," he says without lifting his hand. It's hard to say for sure under the dim illumination provided by the dashboard lights, the moon, and passing headlights, but Kurt looks like his face is going red under his fingers. "Both of you. You're deranged."

" _Nobody looked any finer, or was more of a hit at the Parkway Diner,_ " Blaine and Finn sing obnoxiously, and Kurt loudly snorts.

By the time that they reach the fifth verse, Kurt has apparently become accustomed to Blaine's earnest, soulful, purposely-ridiculous eyes being right in his face, and he proves the adage that Blaine has come to know and love: Kurt Hummel can't resist a sing-along.

The " _ohh, ohhh, ohhh_ "s in the chorus sound much nicer when Finn is laughing too hard to join in. Finn has a nice voice, but Blaine and Kurt have always made the most beautiful music when they're singing to each other.

* * *

  


**Appendices!:**

**(1)** Ryan Murphy has said that there will be 2-4 new Glee kids next year. I submit to you: Sasha, an exuberant Cheerio sophomore who can rap like a motherfucker (they need someone who can actually rap _so badly_ , and I would love if it were a girl); Dan, the junior class president who has even more extracurriculars than Rachel Berry and is just discovering his love for music; Whitney, an operatic soprano who was recruited from the chorus and spends most of her time sullenly trying to be rebellious; and Joseph, a shy freshman.

  
_(My mental pictures, l to r: Sasha [[Keke Palmer](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caudPOvtqR4)], Dan [[Sam](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoNdr0AbttI) [Tsui](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSt11YjJra0)], Whitney [[Aria Tesolin](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlgYdEGfPIU)], and Joseph [[Greyson](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxDlC7YV5is) [Chance](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AU1yyy_At4), who has actually [met Chris Colfer](http://twitter.com/#!/chriscolfer/status/35063695293812736)])_

**(2)**

  
_(l to r) Rachel, Mercedes, Quinn, Tina, Santana, Brittany_

  
_(l to r) Sasha (this is just the inspiration; I imagined it as uglier!), Whitney, Lauren_

  
_Mike's sneakers_

__  
Kurt's Dolce & Gabbana jacket 

**(3)** _Movie prom scenes:_ [Jawbreaker](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ19fV8BiKM); [10 Things I Hate About You](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln7bzeeo2ik&playnext=1&list=PLB5F3F5C2BA231B94) (starting at about 7:00); [Carrie](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPQ7giJg9WE); [She's All That](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqiYAp4hxAU)

 **(4)** Music, in order: "[Grenade](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR6iYWJxHqs)," by Bruno Mars; "[Hips Don't Lie](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUT5rEU6pqM)," Shakira (feat. Wyclef Jean); "[Baby Got Back](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4he79krseU)," Sir Mix A Lot; "[Circus](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVhJ_A8XUgc)," Britney Spears; "[Bleeding Love](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzo-EL_62fQ)," Leona Lewis; "[Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq2KgzKETBw)" Bryan Adams; Rihanna's fictional newest hit as of October 2011; "[Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMOKlXfXn50)," Blu Cantrell; "[Bottoms Up](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekAXPCphKXQ)," Trey Songz (feat. Nicki Minaj); "[American Idiot](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg7YjwZzNz0)," Green Day; "[Jump Around](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwQbPgouUYo)," House of Pain; "[Bad Romance](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdnysn_bad-romance-glee_music)," Lady Gaga; "[Scenes from an Italian Restaurant](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUz48xw_OiM)," Billy Joel.

 **(5)** Amazing [fanart](http://ileliberte.livejournal.com/156926.html) by [ileliberte](http://ileliberte.tumblr.com/).


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